As I learned last year, even though the “official” Vernal Equinox, the time when we have equal amounts of darkness and daylight on our way to the Summer Solstice, falls on March 20th this year, we cross that line now. Yesterday, we had 11 hours, 56 minutes of daylight, and 12 hours, 4 minutes of darkness. Today, we’ll have 12 hours, 2 minutes of daylight, and 11 hours, 58 minutes of darkness.
Rereading last year’s post, I also see that mosquitoes were out on St. Patrick’s Day, 2010. I happened to be in the deep forest yesterday for a while, and didn’t see any. No surprise, as this has been a far colder spring than last year.
We do seem to be getting a break, finally. The forecast says that by Saturday, we’ll have sunshine and 41° highs. The wind switched to the south yesterday. The snow and ice has started to thaw rapidly. The high seas subsided. I watched the water for a while, somewhat dumbfounded at the strange movement I saw. Eventually, I realized I was watching tidal currents. It has been so long since we’ve seen anything but high, wind-driven swells, that it struck me as strange.